Monday, February 21, 2011

Mystery Monday - Oscar Williams & India ________?

I'm dealing with a major brick wall here. My maternal great-grandfather was Oscar Holt Williams. He was born 15 Apr 1875 and died 19 Jan 1952. In 1902, he married a woman named India. Her surname may have been McQueen. It may have been Sandel or Sandahl. Or maybe even McLain. Most of what I have is undocumented, family tradition with a few scraps of questionable information found online.

The Sandel option seems strongest, as she was supposedly a half-sister of Hattie Mae (b. 02 Feb 1883 in Norwood, East Feliciana Parish, LA, d. 07 Jun 1963 in Longview, Cowitz County, Washington) and Nellie Lovie McQueen (b. 18 Sep 1885 in East Feliciana Parish, LA, d. 30 Aug 1970 in East Feliciana Parish, LA), daughters of John Murdock McQueen (b. 02 Oct 1866, d. 27 Jun 1922) and Mary Ellen McLain (b. 05 May 1855 possibly in Amite County, MS). Mary Ellen McLain was first married to Michael F. Sandel (b. 1827, d. 1914). For most of the time, most of these folks lived in Louisiana, probably East Feliciana Parish.

I have had very little luck finding any of these folks in censuses or other public record, and they all seem to have been reticent about keeping family history data. This one section is a total blur. I have data before and after for everyone possibly involved except India. Every time I find some little tidbit about this group, it changes my whole view of what India's surname should be.

And as with any hypothesis this lacking in documentation, I may end up scrapping a bunch of it when something comes to light to make me look silly. Happens all too often!

Mystery Monday – Closely related to Madness Monday only these missing ancestors might not cause madness! Mystery Monday is where you can post about mystery ancestors or mystery records – anything in your genealogy and family history research which is currently unsolved. This is a great way to get your fellow genealogy bloggers to lend their eyes to what you’ve found so far and possibly help solve the mystery. Several genealogy bloggers have been using Mystery Monday as an ongoing series including Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, Kathleen Moore of The Misadventures of a Genealogist and Betty Tartas of Betty’s Boneyard Genealogy Blog. (Blurb shamelessly stolen from Thomas McEntee at Geneabloggers.)

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